Rachel Hart to join Wildfire Books as editorial director

Rachel Hart has been appointed editorial director for fiction at Wildfire Books. She will be starting in her new role on 17th March 2025.

Hart is currently senior commissioning editor at Avon, HarperCollins, where she has been for the last two and a half years. During this time, she has published books by brand authors Phillipa Ashley, Bella Osborne and Molly Green, as well as debut hits including Divorced (Not Dead) by Harper Ford, Happy Bloody Christmas by Jo Middleton, After the Storm by GD Wright and Chris Bridges’ Sick to Death.

Before her tenure at Avon, Hart worked on the editorial team of Welbeck’s fiction list; prior to this she was at Head of Zeus. In her new role, she will be taking on the publishing of some of Wildfire’s key brand-fiction authors, as well as looking for a broad range of new commercial fiction authors across multiple genres. She will also be working with Wildfire’s burgeoning IP development programme and will report to Wildfire’s publishing director, Alex Clarke.

Hart said: "I’m delighted to be joining Alex and the brilliant team at Wildfire. I’ve long admired their dynamic and creative approach to publishing and I’m so excited to be part of their continued growth. I feel privileged to have worked with such talented colleagues and authors at Avon and I’m very proud of the publishing I accomplished there, but I am looking forward to building on Wildfire’s success in this exciting new chapter."

Clarke added: "We’re very excited to be welcoming Rachel to the Wildfire team – she has really made her mark at Avon, with some super-smart commercial fiction publishing. I can’t wait for her to bring her commissioning firepower to the Wildfire list, adding her flair to our ongoing mission to publish edgy, innovative and conversation-starting fiction."